Can anyone offer any advice on Sweeteners? I don’t take sugar in my tea but I do take one sugar in my coffee and probably have two to three coffees a day. Is it worth switching to a sweetener? If yes than which one? And are they safe? Any advice gratefully received. Thank you. :0)

Yes the jury is still out on sweeteners. Personally I try and avoid anything sweet, its not a good signal for the brain. This is my take on sweeteners. When your brain receives the sweet signal it equates that with calories are on the way. When those calories don’t arrive the brain’s response to being conned is to go out and find calories. The craving response. Ask yourself this, whens the last time you saw someone thin drinking a diet coke? Errr never. There’s a reason for that.

I used to drink coffee with sugar and milk, and ever since Stevia is on the market I have been using Stevia instead of sugar. To me the fun of drinking coffee is lost when I can’t sweeten it at least a little.

The interesting bit is that my experience with Stevia is positive, both as to before I started 5:2 (4:3) and after. In fact since I started the fasting routine my Stevia intake has significantly increased, due to the fact that on FDs I often distract myself with drinking decaf coffee with Stevia and milk, and yet I have lost 11 kgs (25 lbs) within 9 weeks.

Although am a huge fan of Dr Jason Fung, if the commenter is right (I haven’t read the book yet), it might be true that Dr Fung is wrong on the Stevia question, and this would explain why it works so well for me even during fasting.

I copy the respective comment here:
“Overall I don’t disagree with his advice but I don’t trust that he thoroughly read the journal articles he referenced. For example…. I was interested in the article he referenced about artificial sweeteners and their impact on serum insulin concentrations, so I read it. According to his take on the study, Stevia consumption increased basal insulin the least, by 20%, aspartame had a middle impact while sucrose had the greatest effect. His conclusion….Stevia increases insulin secretion. If you actually read the study you learn a couple things… There were three groups of people. As a ‘preload’ people were given crackers topped with cream cheese. The cream cheese contained either Stevia, aspartame or sucrose. There was no control group that got just cream cheese and cracker . We all know that crackers are all carb-rich and promote insulin secretion and the cream cheese will do so as well. So the only conclusion you can really draw from the results of this study when you eat crackers with cream cheese your insulin goes up, and it goes up less when you mix stevia into the cream cheese compared to sugar. I am tempted to go and read some of the other journal articles.”

Stevia is great. It tastes pretty good in iced coffee and hot. On 5:2 and it helps to be able to have an iced coffee with a little flavor when you want some food. Fills you up and no more craving. Helps make the FAST work. Love it in a black iced coffee.